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tv   Morning Joe  MSNBC  October 8, 2012 3:00am-6:00am PDT

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at the top of the show we asked why you were awake. john has your answers. john? >> mika looks great in the heels and skirt. love the legs in the morning. >> hey, this is a program! >> who did that? who was that from? >> that was mike barnicle. >> you're not allowed to write. just be quiet. what else do you have? >> i've got mark who writes, i just popped on the tv to watch willie, but instead i get the snotty school mom. do we have to listen to her when sports come on? will we have to endure 20 minutes of tofu talk? >> tofu? well, maybe. i thought i did okay in sports. >> she did great. >> was i all right? >> you were great. >> i don't have to do it again. >> we get a bonus for being rude. >> "morning joe" starts right now. i'm just going to go over here now to my place. well, you have to hand it to
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mitt romney because president obama sure did. many political experts were surprised that during wednesday's debate, president obama failed to mention mitt romney's infamous 47% comment. obama elected to take the high road, forgetting that that road leads to building houses with jimmy carter. romney went on to say that if elected, he would no longer borrow money from china to pay for pbs. china funds pbs. i guess that explains why this week's "sesame street" was brought to you by the letter this. according to nielsen numbers, more than 70 million people watched wednesday's debate either on tv, online or from one of the podiums. >> good morning. it's monday, october 8th. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, political editor and white house correspondent for "the
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huffington post," sam stein. and managing editor of "fortune," andy serwer. >> andy, good to see you. how did columbia do this weekend? >> it was another "w." lehigh, i believe. >> lehigh. >> went out to pennsylvania and lost the football game. >> the columbia, what are you guys? >> lions. >> lions, exactly. of course, i knew that. ivy league mascots. hey, mika. >> yeah. >> something weird's happening in this campaign. you know, sometimes you'll have an event, and as the event goes by, you'll just sort of count the days and wait for the buzz to dissipate, because it always does because we get so easily distracted. we're talking this weekend and you're hearing it and i'm hearing it, this terrible debate performance, the impact seems to keep growing and growing. it's like turning now into an urban legend. by the middle of next week, people will say barack obama can't walk down the sidewalk without stumbling.
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i'm stunned by -- i mean, the republicans are excited, but i'm stunned by how democrats seem to keep getting more depressed every day. i've had people that have never voted republican in their life. >> right. >> saying i may have to do it this year. >> i think there's been that. there's also been a little bit of a back-and-forth about the jobs numbers that have made the republicans look desperate. but yes, overall, i think the debate had a terrible impact for the president and one that i think is surprisingly lasting. >> yeah, why is that? >> well, because a lot of people were watching and because you're wondering why things don't work in washington. and when you see two people go head to head and you see it be so starkly clear stylistically, you kind of wonder if that is brought home. >> that the president's disconnect -- >> yeah. so there's a lot of work to be done in the next debate. i mean, a lot of work. he's going to have to get his
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hands dirty. >> i take it if we're hearing this, i take it you're hearing the same thing, too. i mean, we could talk specifics about, like, for instance, the democratic pollster who tells me they've lost six points in colorado since the debate, but more than polls, because polls do move around, i'm interested in the people that, you know, come up to me on the street, and my democratic friends and what they're saying to me, and i won't say there's a sense of panic, but there has been a real -- >> it's a conversation. >> -- the emperor has no clothes moment over the past week. and it keeps growing by the day. that's why i'm bringing this up. everybody that's watching is hearing this in their own hometowns as well. it's stunning. >> it's certainly no mystery after last week's performance. but you pick up anecdotally and then from talking to business in the business, in the actual business of measuring this stuff on a daily basis, is there's a segment of the voters, we might as well call them the disapointed voter. people who voted for the
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president four years ago and who have been going back and forth for the last year and a half over things they thought that the president would do that this administration would accomplish that have not happened. so they're sort of disappointed in this presidency. so you come to the debate. last week. and they look at romney and they go, oh. a guy like that couldn't have killed a steelworker's wife. you remember that ad they put on. and you take their level of disappointment with now their astonishment at the president's performance, and they are now in play. that, i think, is the biggest danger for the president and his re-election team. >> andy, you have the press circling the wagons wildly for barack obama saying, why didn't you bring up the 47%. why didn't he bring up bain? he did bring up bain. and he talked about the exporting of jobs. and that was mitt romney's best moment where he said i've been in business for 25 years. i have no idea what you're talking about. and barack obama immediately
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goes down and starts looking at his paper again. >> why didn't he bring an oxygen tank, the theory about the altitude. a couple things. first of all, everyone thought, well, this is obama's strong suit, so of course he's going to do well. that's why it still resonates because he did badly. he didn't do well, number one. number two, people say debates don't matter. guess what, they do if you blow it. and number three, what's interesting going forward into this week, i think it puts pressure on joe biden, maybe exactly what the obama team didn't want, which is biden to feel the pressure of having to do well, which maybe is not a good place for biden to be. >> he's going to be great. he's going to be great. >> he's going to have fun. he's actually going to -- >> he is used to it. >> yes. >> unlike the president. >> and his decades working in congress will help. i think paul ryan is outmatched. you know what? whenever we say this before the debate, we set them up. sam stein, do you agree? >> i thought the president did
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wonderful. no. i'm surprised there are 15% of the public who think he won the debate. you talk to any democrat, you know, they concede that he lost. you know, i think what you're getting at, joe, is one, democrats love to freak out. i mean, they are just born to freak out. if obama were to sneeze walking down the street, they would freak out about it. >> the president gave democrats something to freak out. this is not an overreaction. >> no, to finish my sentence, which is in this case -- >> he's ross perot suddenly. >> one was, obama just didn't show up, clearly. the second one is that romney did come off, presented himself as a sort of moderate, reasonable person whereas the past 15 months, people have been attacking him as this plutocrat and there's a little frustration on the part of democrats that obama didn't call him out on it, and two, that he's getting a pass by pivoting to the center like this so close to the election. that's what's causing this near
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apaplectic freakout. >> i've got to say, reading editorials from the press, it's funny because you read it, and it can't be at the end of the day that barack obama's not up to the task. suddenly it's oh, mitt romney just lied. >> no, he did. zblee >> he was the biggest liar of all time. so barack obama is so shocked that he lied that he couldn't even respond because he lied. i mean, seriously. >> stupefied. >> if they believe that in the white house, they're going to lose the second debate as well. >> this is why the most -- i mean -- >> they are spinning like crazy. >> i was watching football this weekend. the most common commercial i saw was saying mitt romney misled you at the debate. they knew they lost it. >> is it not the worst of the excuses, at least to my mind, is that, you know, how come the moderator didn't interrupt him and ask him about the 47%? how about the president of the united states standing up there and doing it?
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>> and the press, mike. >> oh, yes, absolutely. >> we need to move forward. >> they had a rolling set of excuses from the very beginning. at first it was the blogosphere and listening to people go, well, the moderator didn't let barack obama talk as much as mitt romney. well, yes, he did. actually, yes, obama talked more. he just had less to say. >> just like the republicans had a rolling set of excuses for the jobs numbers, so it goes both ways. >> those are conspiracies. >> there's a difference between excuses and full-blown conspiracies. by the way, i can't wait for the readjustment of those jobs numbers. by the way, we may have been off a little bit. >> stop it. oh, stop it. i've been studying that. >> i'll bet number. >> 7.8 is just fine, thank you. the president's debate performance remained a hot topic on the sunday talk shows. former presidential candidate newt gingrich and senior obama adviser david axelrod were asked if obama should have called out romney if he thought his
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opponent was being dishonest. >> the president of the united states had 90 minutes. now, if he had done his homework, if he had actually prepared, if he had actually studied romney, why didn't he say it? why didn't he take romney head on? first of all, the charge on the tax cuts is just plain wrong and i think virtually every analyst has said, and even your deputy campaign manager said the charge is wrong. but forgetting that for a second, the job of the president is supposed to be to be confident and to be able to stand up for what he believes in and to be able to articulate what's wrong. mitt romney walked over him. >> i will be honest with you, i think he was a little taken aback at the brazenness with which governor romney walked away from so many of the positions on which he's run, walked away from his record. and that's something we'll have to make an adjustment for. it takes a certain, as president clinton would say, it takes a certain brass to do what governor romney did there, and it's consistent -- this is what he used to do in private business. i mean, he was the closer at
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bain capital. and the basic theory is say whatever you need to to get the deal, and that's what he did that night. >> again, this is so laughable. "the new york times" -- by the way, "the new york times" is kicking it into overdrive, the week in review section. republican republicans, drop dead. and then mitt romney only won because he's such a liar. >> there were some good pieces inside. >> well, they're desperate pieces, and david, with all due respect, that's desperate. if we're going to play this game, i could pick apart what the president said on medicare and just say well, it's not true. what he said on the debt and say, well, that's not true. if somebody says something that doesn't line up with the truth, debates are about being smart enough and quick enough on your feet and knowledgeable enough to call them out right there and not have your aides do it five days later. >> there's no doubt about that. but back to "the new york times," you referenced "the new york times," there was a piece in "the new york times" this
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weekend about governor romney's tenure as governor of massachusetts and his ability to work with the democratic legislature. 87 to 90%. >> by the way, this was a laughable story, by the way. >> joe, sam, i was stunned. "new york times," our greatest newspaper, they couldn't find one single democratic legislator to quote, to talk to. it was stunning. >> you look at the headline. we're talking about the headline where it said mitt romney's claims of bipartisanship coming under closer observation. yeah, by the time -- >> by whom? >> by "the new york times." i haven't seen those stories over the past four years over mr. hope and change when we've had the most partisan congress and white house in recent history. but they make this claim. "the new york times" themselves make this claim. and you're exactly right. because now every day they're hammering with another story that just -- every day.
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they make this claim, and they can't find a single democratic legislator to say -- >> there wasn't one quoted. not one. >> have they not seen the picture of teddy kennedy and mitt romney smiling at each other as they pass his historic health care plan in massachusetts? >> you're right, it's bizarre there wasn't a democrat quoted, and you're right because there was an historic health care bill signed in massachusetts. but it's pretty well established in massachusetts that he had an acrimonious relationship with the legislature. it wasn't that hard. i mean, that's a well-known story. and yeah, everyone's right here. in debates, you fib. you blend truths and you try to blend it to your own story line. and it's the job of the opponent to call it out. it's kind of surprising that axelrod and everyone else is saying oh, my god, we couldn't have prepared for this stuff. you've been spending the past ten months talking about how romney will say anything to get elected. how could you not prepare for the possibility that he might -- >> it's very simple. it's very simple.
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if mitt romney brings up a $5 trillion number you disagree with, if you know what's behind those numbers, you go actually, those numbers don't add up, they don't even come close to adding up. you could even take away people's home mortgage -- then you say the only way it adds up is if you take away people's home mortgage interest, charitable deductions, if you zing them this way. governor, even those numbers don't add up. >> i mean, i don't know why he didn't do well. i've heard this whole theory that he was sort of putting himself in reserve and then he was going to come back strong and take the gloves off for the second or third debate. >> the rope-a-dope? >> muhammad ali, yes. president obama, no. >> you know why? he's a town hall meeting. you remember, mika, in 2000 when al gore moved too close to george w. bush in a town hall meeting and was trying to be assertive? everybody laughed? >> the maucho man. i tried that on mike one time.
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>> barack obama is going to have to be nicer in the second debate because they'll be in the round so they'll be boxed in here. >> there's a lot of work to do. there's also a lot that can be picked apart in terms of mitt romney's debate performance. take a look at -- is it robert gibbs talking to newt gingrich on "meet the press" yesterday. >> it's not rocket science to believe that the president was disappointed in the expectations that he has for himself. but look. i think part of that was because, as i said earlier, we met a new mitt romney. we met a mitt romney that wanted to walk away from the central theory of his economic plan which is his tax cut. i don't have a tax cut that's $4.8 trillion or $5 trillion. i'm not going to cut taxes on the rich. i don't have a medicare voucher plan. i love teachers. i think we need more of them. i mean, look, don't believe me. speaker gingrich was pretty eloquent in running during the primaries in saying, look, mitt romney will say absolutely anything to get elected. >> all right.
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so i guess we don't have that. what? >> purple tie club. >> purple tie club. i didn't get the memo. >> the thing is, again, rob either gibrobert gibbs is saying this four days later. why didn't the president say that? and secondly, i don't know about you guys, but i'm thinking if it was my gut reaction -- and again, i was harshly critical of mitt romney, and i'm a guy that worries first about debts. and i always have. i heard mitt romney say, talking about, again, i won't pass a tax cut that raises the deficit. that sounds pretty much like the romney doctrine to me. that's what i took away from that debate. and they can have that debate if they want to, but, again, i think a lot of people are listening for the first time. and if mitt romney did move to the center, well, i think that's probably pretty good general
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election strategy. >> and did he answer any questions about how he would do all this? and what loophole he would cut? how he would reduce the deficit? by when? did anyone ask? >> i mean, there's two components to his tax reform plan. one is a huge tax cut, which is going to add up to $5 trillion. and the other is to pay for it. so he's been explicit about one part, which is the tax cut. he hasn't been detailed about the last part. but obama never pressed him on this. that's your point. these are 90-minute forums, they're highly intense. >> you just did it, mika, so why couldn't he? >> that's what i'm wondering. >> everybody out there, democrats were yelling at the camera. >> because it's been the conversation for a month. and for the president not to know -- >> it's stunning, isn't it, sam? it's stunning. but mike, you know, if romney is moving to the center, if he is changing his positions, that's probably good for him electorally. usually candidates do that -- every candidate does that at the convention. mitt romney seemed to do it in the middle of his first debate.
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>> yeah, well, he could have done it at the convention and no one would have noticed given the empty chair. we've talked about that. yeah, i mean, romney's perhaps biggest problem is cosmetics. i mean, he has been pretending to be someone he's not, pretty much for the last 18 months. what we saw in the debate, that's who he is. the question that i would like an answer to, i would love an answer to this is to find out from governor romney how surprised he was that there was no pushback from the president. i bet you just on an athletic level, having played games as a kid, he was probably stunned ten minutes into it on the pushback. he figured, i can just keep hitting this guy. >> that was the funniest part of the "saturday night live" skit where the romney character -- who played romney again? i can't believe i forgot his name. sudak sudakis. sudakis playing romney. he's looking around wide-eyed
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going, what's going on? and romney was doing the same thing. where is barack obama? >> let's give romney credit. he's a tough debater. he was quick and he jabbed back. as soon as obama threw out that $5 trillion figure, he knew he was going to say, i have no idea what you're talking about. >> by the way, it does not matter now. between today and the next presidential debate. forget the vice presidential debate. it will matter. but it does not matter what happens on the campaign trail between now and the next debate. for most americans. they can run all the ads they want to run. and advisers can come out, call mitt romney a liar, if that makes him feel better. "the new york times" and every other editorial page can call romney a liar. it is all ground noise. what matters is if barack obama gets into that next debate, mika, and performs the same way again -- >> i want to see that again. that's what people are thinking. right? >> and i also think the jobs numbers had a huge impact. and the republican response to
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it showed that they're still spinning wildly. >> i just don't think -- trust me, mika, republicans are not spinning wildly. >> oh, yes, they are. >> they're dancing wildly this weekend. >> oh, no, they're spinning. >> the internal numbers in every poll i've heard from both campaigns show that barack obama has taken a hit in florida, in north carolina, in virginia -- >> colorado. >> -- colorado is huge. and the democratic poll -- >> those jobs numbers will not. >> after the job numbers, mika, minus six. he's lost six points since the debate in colorado alone. >> yeah. and all i am saying is that the republicans are spinning wildly about them. trying to make it look like they aren't what they really are. >> no, they're not. no, they're not. >> okay, we'll save that for "must-reads." >> it doesn't matter. >> you know what's happening right now? this is happening out in the country. they're not watching the tv commercials. they're watching football. they're watching the baseball playoffs. >> i kind of agree with mika.
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i think that the jobs numbers tell an important story for the president that we might not be talking about. >> republican incumbent, you'd love the jobs numbers. >> i think it would be hard to say that these jobs numbers -- it's been now a couple months now. the economic situation is getting better. >> i think it's the opposite of what jack welch was saying. we talk about jack welch and what he said and the conspiracy theory, but the thing is, he said given the economy -- >> that's not even what i'm getting at. >> people feel fundamentally better about the state of the economy. >> did i say i love jack welch? >> forget what jack welch said. i'm talking about people who are trying to say that perhaps people have given up. and if you look into the numbers of the bureau of labor and statistics put out, the number of people who are discouraged and have given up has gone down in the past year by 235,000. and in the past four years, by over 400,000. that number is being skewed out there by those who want to say that the job numbers aren't what they appear to be.
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long-term unemployment is still very, very high, but those people are still looking. >> the u-6 number for those cognizant. >> coming up -- >> you're right. republicans are in the dumps. you're right. >> no, they're trying to pretend the numbers that they depend on when they're good in their camp. >> you can't have it all. >> are skewed. >> i don't know. if it continues this way, i think republicans can have it all. >> they're not. not going to have it all. >> coming up -- i'm so excited for what's happening later in the show. we're going to talk to chicago mayor rahm emanuel. rahm has a new wellness competition. we're going to hear how the two cities are teaming up with the american beverage foundation to see which town can get healthier. this morning the moderator of the first presidential debate jim lehrer will be here on set. >> it's all his fault. >> romney adviser dan senor will be here to give us a preview of the candidate's foreign policy
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address today. and famed novelist salman rushdie will join us. up next, the top stories in the "politico playbook." first, bill karins, the potted plant. >> i love you, bill. i love you. >> mika's a little angry today. >> i had to get up early. >> she's really upset. that's a nice catch. mika's upset. you know what i'm going to say? jobs numbers! you're right. >> i am. >> i know you are. >> i know you want to say it in a way that you think i'm not -- >> mika's right. >> i have charts. would you like them? good. >> let me grab this by the reins here. let me take you out the door on this columbus day. good morning, everyone. we are watching clearing skies in new england, not going to last long. bring the umbrella today if you're in the d.c., baltimore, virginia and carolinas. whatever sunshine you have this morning, it won't be there all day long. cold temperatures across much of the country including new england today with highs only in the 50s. those showers, again, late today
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in areas of the mid-atlantic. so here's the arctic blast that moved all the way through the country this weekend, all the way down to dallas it was only in the 50s, too. it was a significant blast of cold air. it's going to stay with us. we're in the 30s from chicago to kansas city. if you're one of those people that just have to go to work or school today with the kids, definitely bundle up. but at least this time of year, you have sunshine in the afternoon, it will be a nice afternoon. chicago, kansas city, st. louis, enjoy what should be just a perfect fall afternoon after a very cold start to our monday on this columbus day. nice shot of the capitol. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. with the spark cash card from capital one,
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27 past the hour. >> did you have a deejay? because i watched, too. >> college radio. >> college radio. >> the night owl.
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>> the night owl. andy serwer. you know, chris licht was a deejay. >> i know he was. >> the licht man. >> oh, no, don't tell me that, joe. >> it was. >> by the end of it -- >> i stayed in my room, just listened to a.m. radio at night. >> it takes a certain kind of person to be a deejay, you know. >> we all know what kind of person. >> i do. let's take a look at the "morning papers." >> oh, my god. >> "the miami herald," venezuelan president hugo chavez has won a third term. >> shocking! shocking! >> do you believe that? what an upset. >> a contest that many considered a serious threat to end his 14-year rule. chavez was declared the winner by 54-44% margin with 90% of the vote counted. >> and "the boston globe,"
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israel has released a video of an unmanned drone. the israeli government says it monitored the drone as it crossed into airspace from the mediterranean sea. the israeli air force shot it out of the sky over a rural area. it's still unclear whether the drone was launched, but many officials suspect the iranian-backed group hezbollah is involved. >> "the washington post," an investigation by the paper reveals more than 70 members of congress have supported legislation in recent years that could benefit businesses or industries they or their families have an interest in. the practice is legal, under ethics rules. in one case, a california congressman helped get tax breaks for racehorse owners and bought seven horses after the breaks began. >> my goodness. hey, with us now, let's go to politico's -- >> at least try to hide it. >> come on, exactly. at least break a sweat trying to scam us. it mays us feel cheap and dirty.
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>> do the dog track instead of the horse track. >> just lie to us a little bit. i feel so dirty. you know who else makes us feel dirty, mika? >> filthy, actually. >> j-mart. >> gives me the skeeves. >> look at that. come on, baby. >> joining us now, politico's jonathan martin. >> i bet he was a deejay, too. >> we'll start with your lead story this morning about why this week's vice presidential debate could really matter, as you skeeve me out. >> thanks, mika. there are three big reasons. first of all is the president's denver dud. i think there's more pressure now on biden to stand and deliver. the second thing is that paul ryan is somebody who is that rare vice president who it's his policies that president obama is running against as much as mitt romney. it's really on medicare especially, it's the ryan policies that obama is running
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against. and then lastly, i think what ryan and biden are defined by in a lot of ways and for biden, that's partially hit his gaffes. is he going to step in it? is there going to be some memorable sound bite from that debate? and ryan is known as the numbers guy. and the whole obama campaign now against romney and ryan is that the numbers on the republican side don't add up. so i think there's going to be pressure on ryan to explain the numbers or at least the obama folks are going to try and pressure ryan to explain the numbers. so these things usually don't matter. it's the undercard. but this time i think there could be a little more importance. >> i think you're exactly right. biden's actually a very good debater. he was very good during the democratic debates in '08. he beat barack obama every time. he is good in the debates, but boy, he can't afford to have an off night, can he? >> no. >> i mean, you talk about feeding into a narrative. i actually think paul ryan can break even and he'll be fine,
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but joe biden can't have an off night. >> joe, imagine the panic -- imagine the panic on the democratic side if biden does have one of those gaffes and, you know, the one night -- the denver sort of story becomes a week-long story. it would be horrific for democrats. >> yeah, it would. >> i don't understand why we're even raising this issue. >> why are we even talking about it? it's joe. >> we love joe. >> by the way, we also love paul, too. >> yes, we do. >> we love them both. is there anything wrong with being in love with two men at the same time? >> no. >> no, i don't think so. >> one is lovable and one's kind of adorable in an awkward sort of way at this point. >> don't talk to joe biden that way. >> no, i'm not talking about him. >> he may be awkward, but i love him. >> i'm talking about paul. >> again, we celebrated the fact that we have two really smart presidential candidates, mika, last week. willie and i were talking about it. let's celebrate the fact that we've got two great american success stories, paul ryan and joe biden.
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they're two blue-collar, catholic guys that, you know, came from two pretty industrial towns. and they're going to be debating as vice president. >> squaring off. >> we've got a great country. >> i actually think you could say that about both tickets across the board. it's a fantastic time. >> it is. it is. it is. >> mittpolitico's jonathan mart thank you very much. drew brees makes history. we'll have a full recap of the weeke weekend's nfl action with mike florio. that's next. keep it here on "morning joe." ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you make 70,000 trades a second... ♪ reach one customer at a time? ♪
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boy, what a big weekend for sports. let's break down what happened yesterday in the nfl with the founder of profootballtalk.com and host of "pro football talk" on nbc. mike, we have so much to talk about. i am shocked. the colts went out. they had a lot to play for. but i am shocked that the colts upset the packers. what happened? >> well, they were down 21-3 at the half. one thing about andrew luck, he's very resilient. and he just keeps coming no matter what the situation, what the score. and they keep coming.
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the packers' defense, although it proved from last year, still not good enough to hold that lead. packers' offense not clicking like it did. the colts won it late. it was a huge game for the team, a huge game for coach pagano hospitalized with leukemia receiving treatment for six weeks. they took him the game ball afterward. this is the kind of game that could lift this franchise. they've already got two wins this year. >> i'm a big believer you never start rookie quarterbacks, you sit them out a year and learn. luck stepping up. another guy that's been stepping up in washington, and that's rg3. but yesterday, boy. he was taught a lesson. >> yeah. >> as dan fouts said, the sidelines is your friend. >> guys have to know how to avoid contact. if you get hit enough times, you're eventually going to hurt. robert griffin iii has been defiant about i'll take whatever comes my way. he took one yesterday. >> that hurts. nice pink shoes. >> he didn't know the score,
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didn't know what quarter it was. the redskins are now being investigated by the nfl because they didn't say he had a concussion until after the game. they knew he had a concussion, apparently. >> you knew watching him come off the field. >> your falcons are 5-0, first time ever. >> first time ever. >> and no one, i think, is going to take them seriously until they get to the playoffs because they've struggled in the postseas postseason. 52 passes yesterday. >> how good is matt ryan? >> matt ryan's pretty good. he's been in that conversation, but you have to win in the postseason to be considered truly elite. you just look at the team this year and say, you know, there's going to be a lot of pressure when they get to the playoff, but they seem like they're ready to deliver on it. >> you know, i really thought that the game of the weekend was going to be new england and denver. but it really wasn't even close. i mean -- >> it tried to get close at the end. >> tried at the end, but boy, the patriots sure looked dominant. >> they found their running game. they kept the ball away from peyton manning. manning had great numbers. but the patriots never gave them an opportunity to really get
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close enough because they were just suffocating in that run game. that's the big defense -- big difference between last year's patriots and this year's patriots. they can run the ball well. >> they certainly controlled it. how good are they this year, mike? >> as he said, stevan ridley, running back, more than 100 yards a game, tom brady, they got much younger with their draft choices. very good pass rushers. they're very good. >> you get the sense last week, they found the gas pedal. 2010/2011, they had eight-game winning streaks each year. you get a feeling they're on something right now. >> what about the ain'ts? they finally win a game. drew brees, big night for him. >> down the stretch, there's some charger fans that may be wondering whether or not somebody was trying to make sure the saints won that game. there were some questionable calls. it was a good game for the saints. 1-4. there's only one team that's gone 1-4 and made it to the
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postseason, it was the chargers 20 years ago. you can't rule them out. >> could be the saints. >> 49ers. >> 79-3 over the jets and the bills in consecutive weeks. so it's the new york trifecta. the giants go to san francisco next week. and the 49ers are looking great right now. >> the 49ers were so utterly dominant in this game. i mean, i had flashbacks of the late 1980s. this is a really good team. >> at one point it was 3-3 and then you blink and it's 45-3. they dismantle teams. and i still don't know how they lost a game at minnesota a couple weeks ago. i don't see them losing many more this year. >> really quickly, we had the civil war in pennsylvania yesterday. michael vick, a guy that i'm cheering for, two fumbles. i hate to say it, he cost the game. >> and i don't care who would have gone into pittsburgh yesterday. it just felt like a game the
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steelers were destined to win. they still have new injuries to play with. they have to turn around and play thursday night. they ended up pulling it out. the eagles at 3-2, they still feel like they're so much worse than 3-2. >> all right, mike, sanchez's back is against the wall. >> he plays well when his back's against the wall. >> the gm's back is against the wall. he's one or two losses away from being fired. the entire jets organization's back is against the wall, and they're playing a really good team tonight. what will we see? >> i think we'll see sanchez play well, but there's too many injuries, too many deficiencies on both sides of the ball. i'd be shocked if the jets win. i won't be shocked if sanchez plays well. we should see more tebow in whatever package. >> they're going to use tebow. they've got to. he's a playmaker. and the jets don't have playmakers. >> using him in spots isn't going to get the most out of him. >> mika could not look any more bored. how about the old ball coach, everybody? talking football. >> steve spurrier.
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>> holy cow! >> those gamecocks. >> south carolina, number three. >> the gators are back. >> west virginia guy. i don't know how they won at texas on saturday night. >> geno smith. >> love that guy. >> he only had four touchdown passes. it feels like a letdown from last week. >> by the way, that west virginia/texas game, one of the best college football games in a long time. what a shootout. >> mika agrees. >> exactly what you said. fantastic. >> all year. >> unbelievable. mike, thank you so much. up next, harold ford jr. joins us for the "must-read opinion pages." we're back in just a moment.
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okay. look at that pretty shot of d.c.
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welcome back to "morning joe" at 46 past the hour. joining us now for the "must-read opinion pages," msnbc political analyst and visiting professor at nyu, former democratic congressman, harold ford jr. >> the great harold ford. welcome to the show. >> thank you, sir. >> we have two for you guys this morning. the first is "the new york times," "it could be his party." what romney did was clarify, elevate and translate. he clarified what kind of tax reformer he would be, by promising that revenue neutrality would take priority over sweeping cuts for the rich, a premise that plenty of republicans are already happy to accept. he elevated an argument that's increasingly popular among conservative wonks, that dodd-frank financial reform perpetuates too big to fail and use it had to make a populist case against the president. and he translated the basic free market vision to a nun ideological audience by talking more about decent jobs than heroic job creators and more about the struggling middle
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class than about the supposedly persecuted john galts. that is the role that an effective party leader ought to play. media fantasies notwithstanding, you can't lead a party by repudiating its base or campaigning against its reigning ideology, but you can lead by channeling the base's passions in a constructive direction and by reinterpreting the party's ideology to meet the challenges of the present day. >> i think that's a brilliant -- >> i think that is really smart. >> i think that is a brilliantly written op-ed, harold. for so long, the past couple years, republicans like myself, who are crazy, who actually want to win elections, have been distressed that the craziest factions either on the airwaves or in the blogosphere somehow we're shaping the party's image. mitt romney became the leader of the republican party the other night. he did it by being rational, saying, okay, i want tax cuts. but i'm not going to pass tax
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cuts if it increases the deficit. and in massachusetts, i worked with liberals. every morning we got together and we got things done. it's like -- it's not the sort of warfare that many in my party and in the democratic party have glorified over the past 10, 15 years. i thought mitt came temperamentally at least to the middle, and it seems like he's -- i think ross is right. he's the new leader of the republican party. >> he demonstrated leadership on the ticket, not only is his name first on the ticket, but when asked about paul ryan's plan, he indicated that i'm the leader on this ticket, and we're going to follow what i want to do, one. two, you're going to hear leading republicans who have disagreed with him, those in the congress, in the senate who have insisted that no revenue be a part of any long-term spending control bill in the congress. none of them have said a word. as a matter of fact, most have suggested he did a great job during the debate. this could be a sea change for republicans. but if i'm president obama in the next debate, i'd ask governor romney in a straight
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and direct way, how do you plan to reconcile your lang wedge with that of? in t in the house and senate? >> i think mitt romney's answer is the same answer. paul ryan is my vice president, and we're going to follow my plan. and congress can do what they want to do. i've already said the romney doctrine is this on taxes. i am not going to pass a tax cut that will increase the federal deficit one cent. >> that will strengthen his case with the american people, equally important, with the middle class. but i guess the question i would have just beyond it slightly is john boehner was quoted over the weekend saying it would be very hard to achieve a short-term deal, let alone a long-term deal during a lame duck. i guess my next follow-up question is how do you plan to bring this group together? would you be willing to vote -- would you be willing to cobble together a group of some republicans and some democrats? when we were in congress, clinton won some democrats, some republicans. the question is are you willing to build that bipartisan
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coalition and get it done? >> and that's what he talked about at the debate that yes, he is willing to do it. in fact, unlike president obama, before he kept the white house, mitt romney was governor, he had to work with a legislature that was 97% democrat. >> the one memorable line -- there were very few from obama in the debate, when he was talking about bipartisanship and saying it's tough to get them to the table because a lot of democrats like obamacare. that's a valid point. romney's first day includes sweeping back a lot of what obama did. >> let's get joe nocera in from "the new york times." 7.8% and a lot of people politely put it as far exceeding expectations. this is what joe writes. "there's something truly absurd about having the presidential race hinge on the unemployment rate. even putting aside the reliability of the short-term numbers, the harsh reality is
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that no president has much control over the economy, that is especially true of president obama, whose every effort to boost the economy these past two years has been stymied by republicans. again and again they have shown that they would rather see the country suffer than do anything that might help obama's re-election. there is rough justice in the way things are playing out, having spent the last year wrongly blaming the president for high unemployment, republicans can only stand by helplessly as the unemployment rate goes down at the worst possible moment for them." and they also went on to try and question the numbers and say that people had given up and there are other reasons why the numbers had gone down. >> i like joanne awful lot. but to say republicans have been standing by trying to do nothing, andy, you know what? we disagree. >> i think there's some argument for it. >> we disagree. the president believes that we didn't build it. that individuals don't cause the economy to explode. he believes that you grow the economy from a traditional
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keynesians approach. you let the federal government spend trillions of dollars, and good things will happen. we republicans disagree with it today. we disagreed with it for the past four years. we've disagreed with it for the past 40 years. so just to say we republicans just want the economy to fail, with all due respect to joe, that's irresponsible. >> i think the president believes in the private sector maybe a little bit more than that. the other thing is, obama, they were saying he tanked the economy going into the election four years ago. and now, of course, he's manipulating the numbers to make it look good, he's pretty good, this obama guy, manipulating the economy. but my feeling is the economy is actually picking up. >> it is. >> we slowed down in the spring, and now it is picking up. housing is up. >> exactly. >> autos up. >> consumer confidence is up. >> consumer confidence is up. union pacific. >> stock market. >> said his traffic on his railroad is up over last year. that's huge. >> you know, i have had a good friend in florida that -- earl
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durden, late, great earl durden, he had short-line railroads, had them all over the country. anytime i wanted to know how the economy was going to do next quarter, i'd pick him up and say how much are you moving? he would tell me. he'd go, picking up. sure enough, railroads. leading indicator. at least from what i saw. >> if you've got employment, housing, autos and railroads and -- >> it's a tough argument to say that there's something wrong with the numbers. >> andy, i would ask, you have fedex and other companies which i think are great barometers suggesting that the next quarter we could see weakened global growth. >> i can totally reconcile that, harold, because what's going on is the u.s. economy is picking up while the rest of the world is lagging. north america is strong. and it's really just happened over the past couple months. >> you know what alan greenspan used to do? look at sales of men's underwear. if people were going out and buying men's underwear, a product you could maybe get away with not buying, not me, of course, so i'm going to go check
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on men's underwear sales. >> check on that. but how great is it -- you're right, the united states, we've had a lot of problems, but the united states is getting stronger. >> we are. >> our economy is growing at the same time is slowing down, europe is slowing down. pretty soon all these stories about america's decline which everybody loves to talk about in the united states and across the world is going to seem dated and old. >> with cheap energy, they're going to build here. >> the moderator of last week's debate, jim lehrer. we'll be right back.
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thank you, andy. >> thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. when we come back, mitt romney foreign policy adviser dan senor. >> this is big. >> joins us on set. dan is back. >> do you think he's going to be gloating? >> i'm excited. >> do you think dan will gloat? >> i think dan better be very, very careful. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] feeling like a shadow of your former self? c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t.
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♪ tonight the anniversary gift, i can't believe i forgot the anniversary gift. okay, i'll be out of here by 9:00 local time. i have the secret service distract michelle while i hit the hotel gift shop for some kind of anniversary present. let's see, they had a denver broncos sweatshirt. she might like that. the hotel has some nice bathrobes for sale. that could be good. >> excuse me, governor. mr. president? >> i'm sorry, yeah, yeah. what's up? >> mr. president, governor romney has just said that he killed osama bin laden. would you care to respond? >> no, you two go ahead. >> we have run out of time. which brings the first of three presidential debates to a close.
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i'd like to thank our participants, governor mitt romney -- >> you hear that, mitt romney? you are a badass mother [ bleep ]. >> and president barack obama. >> welcome back to "morning joe." a live look at the white house as the sun comes up over washington. sam stein and harold ford jr. are still with us. and joining us now, adviser to the romney campaign, dan senor. >> good to be with you. >> dan, mika's in a bad mood. >> why are you in a bad mood? >> it's been a rough week. >> oh, come on. >> her candidate fell asleep in the campaign. he needs to get him some no-doze. >> her candidate didn't have a very good story to tell when he got up there. >> thank god your candidate's going to do a foreign policy speech. >> i mean, you know -- >> that's cold. your brother works for him. >> tough.
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>> one of mitt romney's advisers said it's not that president obama had a particularly bad night, he's had a bad four years. so it's not surprising when he's up there on the stage for an hour and a half with no spinmayspi spinmeisters, with no one to intercede on his behalf. >> i know you think the last four years have been all sunshine. let me ask you, first of all, dan, and i'm dead serious here. i'd love to go behind the scenes and take our viewers behind the scenes. what were you guys thinking? you guys had been prepping mitt romney. you knew your backs were up against the wall, right? you knew mitt romney had to have a good debate. what were you guys thinking as you saw this thing unwind and saw that the president not only didn't bring his "a" game, he just didn't show up, and mitt was on top of his game. what were you thinking? >> as we were watching it, we were thinking we were at the right place at the right time. you think of all the debate
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preparation. there's a lot of work and staff's very involved. at the end of the day, it's his ball. mitt romney gets on that stage. he's throwing the ball. and the only thing he can control is him, what he does, what he says, what comes out of his mouth. >> doesn't matter how much you prep him, it's up to him. >> and it doesn't matter what the moderator does. it doesn't matter what the president does. the one thing that's in his control is the case he makes. and it's the first time that there was -- you know, you think about the way people portrayed mitt romney over the past few months as though he's some sort of monster. and suddenly we got to see the guy that we know. the guy up there who's smart, who's successful, likeable, brimming with ideas and energy. and the contrast was pretty amazing. >> it's like what mike barnicle said earlier, people saw him and said oh, wait, this guy didn't kill somebody's wife. >> right. >> and i thought one of the most telling moments -- and i think we can say this, we talk a good bid offline regularly -- i said, you know what the best -- your
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guys' best line was when he started to attack him on bain. >> right. >> when barack obama did. and his comeback was, "i worked in business for 25 years. i have no idea" -- i said that was a great line. and you said -- >> that was totally improvised. he was actually genuinely struck. i have no idea -- these stale democratic talking points that have zero depth to them, that aren't backed up by any real research, and the president was just popping out these lines. it was like someone -- john pothorst tweeted out at the time, it was like no one had disagreed or challenged the president for the last four years. so when he just throws these things out, mitt romney comes back and says, wait a minute, i have no idea what you're talking about. and there was no response. >> by the way, what john said is what everybody started saying after the debate and in the ensuing days. and what he said around here was, it was very obvious that the president had not been challenged for four years. and suddenly he had mitt romney
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coming after him time and time again. >> yeah. and i think it's important to take a step back and recognize that the four years that he's trying to explain have not been a good four years. i mean, committwe can go throug data. and he really hasn't put forward a plan going forward. so what exactly did he expect to do? he didn't have a credible explanation for how we got to this moment. and he didn't have a rationale for why he should have a second term. so why exactly did people think when he was there 90 minutes unfiltered face to face with another candidate challenging him did he not think he was going to have very little to say? >> well, i think it's a little frustrating because you can now make that argument. but in four years, we're looking at this moment in time, i think the president would say it's been very tough. we came into a really tough situation. we saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. unemployment is now at 7.8%. how housing prices are going up. consumer confidence is going up. the stock market is up. we are not where we want to be,
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but we're growing. >> wait, wait, wait. can i stop? can i stop? >> do you want to go back to bush policies? >> hey, mika, that was better. what you just said was a better -- no, it's the truth! what you just said is more inspiring than what the president of the united states said -- >> uh-huh. >> -- over an hour and a half. >> because of the altitude. >> it was the altitude. i saw jim lehrer in the green room. it was his fault. >> it was all jim lehrer's fault. >> it was all john kerry's fault. he didn't prep him well enough. >> as you're reeling it off, and harold and sam are agreeing, hey, things are getting better. why didn't he do that? >> well, we've got one more debate. he'd better get over the altitude. >> the altitude. i would say it's not credible. i think you take a step back. 23 million people out of work. >> what i just said is not credible? >> you are credible. but if the president used those lines, they are not credible. >> why? >> i'll tell you. 23 million americans out of work
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or looking for work, okay? the job picture has not improved. >> what? >> meaning more jobs haven't been created month to month. one out of six people are in poverty. 47 million americans are on food stamps. you can't just get up there and say well, things were bad when i inherited this. four years later they're slightly better. i don't really have any meat on the bones of a plan going forward. >> what do you mean, the jobs haven't improved month to month? >> i'm saying that we all in the pundit class say this difference between the 8.1% and the 7.8% as some meaningful moment for the electoral process. i just think when you take a step back, the country is still facing a jobs crisis. the country is still facing a jobs crisis. >> it was meaningful when romney used the talking point they hadn't been below 8%. >> nobody believes -- let's have a sober conversation here. we're a month away from the election. this country's facing a jobs crisis. it's been facing a jobs crisis for a while. it's facing a jobs crisis for the foreseeable future. we can argue around these small,
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you know, percentages. >> you said they weren't improved month to month. i was confused by that. >> more jobs were created in august and september, and 2011, 2011 isn't better. >> i don't agree with some of what you're saying. to say the president doesn't have a good story to tell for the last four years is slightly unfair. cars are up. there's a big difference between he and romney on cars. he should have made the point. if we hadn't capitalized our banks, you and i both know our banking system in the country would be an unfortunately more similar position than we are in europe today. the reality is, this president has made some tough choices. he's made some different choices than mitt romney claimed he would have made as a candidate. i hope those come out. i'd love to hear mitt romney's explanation for what he would have done with regard to safing our banks, what he would have done to saving our car companies. and as much as governor romney makes the point about energy, remember, energy expiration and domestic production is higher than it's been in 50 years in
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this country. we're undergoing a geographic pivot. >> can i respond to that? >> most would say it's a republican, not a democrat. >> it's not happening -- it's happening on private lands, not federal lands. >> but the president could have made it more difficult by imposing regulations. >> he's taking credit for something when there's tremendous opportunity. let's talk about the banks. mitt romney and barack obama both supported, in the heat, in the flash of the financial crisis stepping in and backstopping the banks. what mitt romney took issue are are certain provisions within dodd-frank that actually institutionalized too big to fail. they actually declare certainly financial institutions as systemically important financial institutions, meaning if they get into trouble again, the taxpayers are on the hook. that's the financial plan that barack obama supports, and that's the one that mitt romney took issue to. and when romney said that to him on the stage, how does this help our economy that the federal government now has this implicit guarantee to support the banks? the president had no answer. he said mitt romney just wants to let wall street run wild.
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that's not what he said. he supports responsible regulation. again, the president didn't have a response. >> so we have vice presidential debate coming up. our good friend, paul ryan, is going to be debating against our other good friend, joe biden. >> joe biden is the best. >> we're just saying what a great american success story for both of these guys, both blue-collar catholics. >> self-made. >> self-made. both of them. >> good men. >> it's a great story and really good men. but how important is this vice presidential debate? for the romney team? >> look, i think all these debates are important. i think for the president's team, since they had a pretty rough first debate, i think they're feeling that there's a lot of pressure now on biden. >> harold, you'd agree with that, right? >> totally. i'm only making the case for the president. i think there's a narrative. no doubt about it. >> i mean, they parachuted david axelrod in in the last couple days to take over the debate
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preparations for biden. good news for biden, you know, we all talk about setting expectations. but the truth is, he's a fantastic debater. david plouffe -- no, david plouffe in his book said one of the reasons they chose biden in 2008 is because he won all the debates. he's a great debater. he's debated 14 times in 2008. you know, he's run for president twice. >> sam, you're laughing -- >> no, no. >> but joe biden -- >> joe biden is a very good debater. >> have you ever seen joe biden lose a debate? everyone talks about his gaffes on the road. he makes those some speeches. >> he never loses a debate. weap we were just saying that he beat barack obama every time he debated. >> he had the definitive line against rudy jewel yawnly. giulia giuliani. >> i've got to ask about your candidate's foreign policy address. that's happening today. >> today, virginia military institute. >> i'm looking at some of the previews of the speech. >> which he loves. >> i don't. he's going there on benghazi,
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talking about iran. does he really need to do this? >> yes, does. >> let me respond to that, you know. what he has done over the last couple weeks is tried, in working on the speech, is to try to step back and look at events in recent weeks and years. iran closer to a nuclear bomb than it has ever been before. syria in chaos. you know, lots of tumult throughout the middle east. the arab spring turning into some sort of dark winter. and he's taking a step back and looking -- this is the world we live in. the president likes to talk about a pivot to asia. the middle east is really unsettling, unraveling. and let's take a look at how we got here and where we go from here. he says explicitly in the speech as it relates to benghazi that the only people responsible for the attack on our consulate in benghazi are the terrorists. let's be clear about that. however, what he does say is, there is an unraveling, a sense of unraveling in the region across the middle east right now that are partially the
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reflection of policies. >> what's going on over there? >> i honestly don't know. i'm struck by it. >> harold, why? why don't they still have their story straight on what happened in benghazi where a u.s. ambassador was killed? >> i take them at their word that as information comes in, they're going to continue to share. >> we're like a month past this. >> i like your speech. i think it's good that he's giving a speech on that standpoint. but as i've read the excerpts -- and i'm curious, what would governor romney be doing right now different on iran succinctly? i hear you. i just don't know differently -- do you agree with prime minister netanyahu and declare a red line? >> so governor romney believes there have been a lot of mixed messages on iran sent over the last few years. so on the one hand, sanctions have been put in place and have an impact on the economy. on the other hand, the administration fought these sanctions for years. it was only when they were faced with strong bipartisan support
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for these sanctions, overwhelming bipartisan support, that the administration got on board. they were silent -- >> why? why did they take so long? >> if you look at the letters sent out to capitol hill from secretary geithner, jim steinberg, secothat sanctions w have a devastating on the u.s. economy, global economy, that the sanctions would undermine their diplomatic efforts. >> the timing of the sanctions. you all would have done it much earlier? >> if you look at the sanctions now, the news over the past couple weeks, iranian currency has crashed by about half. why do we wait for 2012 on that? why didn't we do it in 2010? political pressure. domestic political pressure that we could have supported, put pressure on the iranian regime, 2009. once-in-a-generation opportunity where you had a genuine bona fide uprising in iran. the president was silent. the potential to get regional allies to work, to isolate iran like and our allies in the gulf.
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and the president has just put more distance between the united states and its allies in the region. so it's these mixed messages coming out of the administration that have undermined the credibility of the administration in the eyes of tehran which is why tehran is racing ahead to build a nuclear weapon. >> so the timing of the sanctions. >> the timing of the sanctions, domestic political pressure, standing with our allies and making sure the threat is credible. >> it sounds like the substance he's dealing with now, it's just the timing. >> on the sanctions. we disagree with the strategy on political pressure, his approach to working with allies, and we think the military threat has not wen credible in the eyes of iran. >> given this extremely dicey stuff as mitt romney learned himself when he spoke too soon after certain events, is there any support that he's going to have for the president and the work that he has done on a foreign stage? >> that's a great question. >> in the speech. >> mitt romney always praises
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the president's work in working with our intelligence community and our special operators in the killing of osama bin laden. he acknowledges, obviously, we celebrate some of the decimating of al qaeda. so there are important things that the president has done. but just because bin laden is dead doesn't mean that al qaeda's not on the rise. and if you look throughout the middle east today and throughout north africa, al qaeda's on the rise. mika, you can't look at what's going on in the region today and say -- let me ask you, do you think the president's foreign policy in the region is successful? >> let me ask you this. >> iran is closer to a nuclear bomb. syria is in chaos. people are storming our embassies. there's one measurement of success. do you think according to that measurement, the president is making progress? >> i would say the sanctions are working. when it comes to the threats in the middle east, we do not want to have a knee-jerk reaction to what happens there. >> are the sanctions working in slowing down iran's nuclear program? they are racing ahead. >> and thirdly, i would be very careful to jump into this debate
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if i'm the republican presidential candidate and not the president. i just think that could be very dicey. i wish you the best of luck. >> because really, dan, if you look back and see how the democrats showed great restraint in 2004 and they never attacked george w. bush's foreign policy, perhaps if you could just follow -- if you could have just followed their great example in 2004. >> let's talk about 2012. look at the democrats' convention. how many primetime addresses were dedicated to them celebrating how successful their foreign policy is? they certainly have the right to do that. we're not allowed to have a discussion about it? >> obama, did a speech on what his foreign policy would look like, on what his -- >> john kerry gave a primetime address dedicated exclusively -- >> this looks like an attack doctrine. >> first of all, read the entire speech, he lays out, again, his announcements of how we got here and where we're going. mika, they're primetime addresses. at the democratic convention on foreign policy, we're dedicated,
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yes, to the president's successes, but also to ripping mitt romney to shreds. now, they want to have a discussion about foreign policy, they can have it any way we want. but the idea that we're not allowed to weigh in? >> absolutely. i was just trying to figure out the differences between you guys and the key issues. >> guys, it's great to be back! i get back on the road today. >> i just want to hug you. >> how's campbell doing? >> i'll tell you how campbell's doing. i'll tell you how campbell's doing. she's fine because dan's gone all the time so everything's organized. she can find everything. >> come on! >> because she's handling it. >> you know what? mika still has not forgiven you -- >> about the bags. >> for forgetting the suitcase. >> i get people stopping me going, "you're the dude that forgot your kid's bag!" it ruined me. >> i told campbell she didn't give you enough to do. men cannot think of the one thing they have to do. they erase it from their brains.
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>> here's your one thing for the week. are you ready? get paul ready for that debate. the kid from wisconsin. all right. >> very sweet of you. i'll pass that on to the family. great to see you guys. >> our best to campbell. when we come back, the man who moderated last week's debate, jim lehrer joins us on set next. also, chicago mayor rahm emanuel joins the conversation. he's talking about health. it will be awesome! keep it right here on "morning joe."
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welcome back to "morning joe." is that the tape from friday? what are you doing, t.j.? >> t.j., that's the same shot from friday. seriously, t.j. gets one shot and he stays on it. >> joining us now, executive of "pbs news hour," the man who moderated 12 presidential debates -- >> if he's smart, he won't do 13. >> friend of my family, jim
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lehrer. >> if he's smart. if he's smart, he'll stay away. you know, you should go fishing, jim. >> jim's out with a new book that i feel could be about the show, "tension city: inside the presidential debates." very good to have you on board this morning. >> mika, i'm delighted to be here again. >> so i hope you've stayed off the internet over the past week or so. there's some crazy people out there, jim. >> i've heard about them. i decided to stay -- >> you don't tweet? >> yes. let's just say i heard about them. a few other things that have seeped through. it's nuts. >> it is nuts. mike, what did these people do before the internet in >> jim and i were talking about just before this segment began. i don't know. but, i mean, the level of viciousness and anonymity that's accompanied -- >> that's the problem. >> -- we do not live in a nation of 300 million newspaper columnists, okay? put your name on it. if you're going to make a
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personal assault on someone's ethical bearing, professional bearing or whatever, put your name on it. >> the amazing -- >> anonymous. >> the amazing thing is a week and a half ago republicans were calling me, you know, prostitute and this and that and the other because they were angry because we were tough on romney. romney had a good debate. and this past week, i have been called a racist and a bigot. it happens to all of us. >> i'll give you a list of everything i've been called in the last couple of days. >> right, exactly. so the bottom line is, they're saying that the president couldn't take care of himself and that you let mitt romney run all over you. what do you say to that? >> well, 67 million people saw what happened. i think there was a misunderstanding probably of the result of the commission and i probably didn't explain it ahead of time that, you know, this is a progression of presidential debates that's been going on for several years now. and the dream has always been to have an open debate where the
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candidates stand and look at each other and confront each other. and that's what this was. >> right. >> and that's exactly what happened. >> more of a lincoln douglas-style debate than where we're going in debates. >> absolutely. because the theory of the commission -- and i agreed with this enthusiastically -- is that if you don't have an open -- if you don't have open presidential debates, what you have is a presidential campaign that is governed by canned stuff, canned speeches, canned commercials. and here for the first time in american political history, you had an incumbent president of the united states on a stage being confronted by his opponent and the idea -- and they were talking about things that mattered -- and yes, there was some -- and we went into it. i went into it at least fully prepared to just let it run. see if it would work. as long as they didn't start talking about baseball or something that was way off the mark. as long as they were talking about things that mattered. and that's exactly what they
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did. >> you said your job was to stay out of the way. >> absolutely right. and that's the wean that people were a little disconcerted, some of the tweeters, the twitterers and the wawas because they expected an old-fashioned debate. two-minute canned answers and one-minute responses. this was not that. >> he had gotten in and tried to influence one side or the other and cut off questions, you'd have been equally criticized. i think you did a fantastic job. you allowed america to see these two candidates to go head to head and confront each other, try to correct one another and then lay out their own vision. that's what all debates should be like. >> exactly. and that -- i'm hoping that they will be from this point on. >> i hope they use you again. >> no, no, no, it's not about me. it's about this format and if it is seen as a positive development, then people will -- whether it's at the local level, state level or national level, presidential level, that, okay, we've seen -- if the president of the united states can do this and the challenger to the
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president of the united states can do this, we can all do this. >> mike, i thought it was sad. i really did. i thought it wassed is that some of the president's supporters that were looking for an excuse decided to attack the moderator as if the president of the united states wasn't tough enough to handle things without having a schoolteacher come in and slap mitt romney on the wrist with a ruler. >> you and jim just employed the key phrase in the debate. it's a debate between the president of the united states and another man, a former sitting governor, who wants to be president. that's the debate. that's it. the moderator's role is to stay out of the way. if the president of the united states didn't have the wherewithal, which he didn't the other night, to mention 47%, or to mention whatever aspect of romney's candidacy he deemed important, it's not up to the moderator to say, uh, mr. president, you want to jump in here with the 47%? what's that going to do to the moderator? >> he would have been criticized. >> but the world, the culture that we live in now, it's not a
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news culture. if you sit here -- if i sit here and say to you, harold, you know, there's been a great deal of misunderstanding about mitt romney, and it's probably romney's own fault, but he's kind of a nice guy, you get lit up. >> right. >> these people, what do you mean, he's a nice guy? you know, if you say that about the president, you know, he's a good guy. you get lit up. you're going to get lit up either way. >> it results in a misunderstanding, understandably because people are used to one-on-one interviews. and they expect -- some people expected this debate to be kind of simultaneous one-on-one interviews. and i would ask the president this question, and i would ask that question, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. but that's, as you say, that's not what this is about. this was about those candidates. >> so jim, this was your 12th debate. you've written about debates. >> i have. >> you got that from 41, bush 41. >> that's right. >> who actually said the debates, and he didn't like them. >> he hated them. >> he said i'm not good at them.
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they're contrived. they're showbusiness. and there seems to be an ongoing debate about the debates. his own son, 43, said he likes them. that he thinks you can find out what people learn in them. there is a debate whether these debates fulfill a useful purpose. >> exactly. and that's why i think last wednesday's debate is going to change that debate. it may change it forever. nobody's ever going to be able to argue, oh, these things don't matter. they matter. >> they matter. >> they might not have mattered as much if they had been in the old-fashioned, you know, two-minute, one-minute canned -- >> is there a moment from the debates that you moderated that sticks out in your mind where you were there and you said, okay, i just saw something -- >> you mean on wednesday? >> no, i'm saying of all the debates, including wednesday where you said, okay, that's going to change this race. >> no. no. my mind is far, far away from things like that. i can't clutter my mind thinking about that sort of stuff.
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it's about trying to do what i'm supposed to do, which is -- and concentrated on my job and listening to what's going on and not judging them. when that debate was over even wednesday night, i wasn't sure what the result was. because also, remember, i'm sitting -- you know, from here to there very close, this is being watched on television screens. by 67 million people. it's that what goes down with them that matters. i'm the last one to judge, hey, billy bob whipped up on sammy sue. forget it. i'm not going to make judgments like that. >> the book is "tension city: inside the presidential debates." jim lehrer, great to have you back on the show. >> delighted to be back. >> great to see you. >> thank you. >> great book. and be careful out there. >> yes, sir. will do. coming up next, our next guest spent more than a decade in hiding after iran's ayatollah issued a fatwa death threat against him. salman rushdie tells his story
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in a new memoir next on "morning joe." with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back
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up next, novelist salman
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rushdie is here to talk about his new memoir. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪ these are... [ male announcer ] marie callender's puts everything you've grown to love about sunday dinner into each of her pot pies. tender white meat chicken and vegetables in a crust made from scratch. marie callender's. it's time to savor.
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salman rushdie is out with a new book, and it is very good to have you on the show. >> thank you. >> nice to see you again. >> yeah, thnice to be back. >> let's start with the title for those that don't know. where's the title come from? >> well, i have to make up a pseudonym basically in these years of underground police protection that i've had to go through after the attack on the satanic verses and the khomeini death threats. and the police asked me to come up with the name basically so they could use a name which wasn't my name when they were going for runs in the supermarket or whatever and not accidentally use my real name
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and blow the cover. so i made up this name from two writers. basically from joseph conrad and anton chekov. >> took their first names and put them together. you also took conrad's view on life as a sort of way to guide yourself. >> there's a famous line in conrad where one of his characters says, i must live until i die. and that became like a talisman for me. >> you have a fascinating description of how you viewed the fatwa on you in 1989. you said it was a bit like an opening scene from alfred hitchcock's movie "the birds." when the first bird flies in. >> unfortunately, maybe i got to be the first bird, you know? >> yeah. >> i think, you know, later on when, you know, when this was a big subject, i mean, after the 9/11 attacks, and the sky was full of dangerous birds, it was possible then to look back and say oh, yeah, there was that
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thing that happened ten years ago, and maybe that was somewhere near the beginning of this. and i think at that point, it was easier for people to have a context for it. >> it radically altered your life. you talk about ordinary needs being difficult, getting your aching wisdom teeth attended to. everything required complicated self-operations. if a housekeeper came into your home, you had to go into a bathroom and lock yourself in. >> other examples. >> the wisdom teeth thing was ridiculous because they exploded and hi to go to the hospital and they were worried about what might happen if there was an attack on the hospital. the police, they brought a hearse to one of the loading docks. and they had a body bag. and their plan was that if there was a problem, and i was under anesthetic, of course, they were going to put me in this body bag. >> oh, my gosh. >> fortunately, they didn't have to do that. fortunately, they didn't tell me till later either. >> how did the wisdom teeth situation go? >> did it go okay?
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>> dentistry first. the wisdom teeth are fine, thanks. >> thank god. >> you do, though, talk about one of your greatest regrets is the fact that you could not be a regular father. >> it was much harder. i think in the end, i managed it and actually we came out of this much closer maybe as a result. you know, he was 9 when this attack began. he was more or less 21 when it finished. so he had to grow up through this and suffer the loss of his mother during that time. but i did my best. we actually have come out of it in a way unusually close, i think. >> all those years living like that, you know, we made a lame joke when you arrived here on the set saying, you know, did anybody follow you? >> who's "we"? it was you. >> it was you, barnicle. >> it was shared. what lingering effects has it had on you personally and professionally? >> you know, now it's really been okay for a decade. every so often, somebody in iran
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shakes a fist in my direction, but essentially it's gone. as far as my work's concerned, i mean, the one thing i take pride in is i have managed to continue to write throughout that time. i think i wrote five or six books during that decade. and i think if you were to read the books knowing nothing about my life, you wouldn't see that there was some great explosion in the writer's life in the late '80s. the books i managed to keep doing, and i think that's one of the things that i do feel good about. >> did it alter or change, diminish, enhance your thoughts on, you know, people's ability to be tolerant? >> well, you know, the interesting thing about what happened in those days is that yes, i was the target of extraordinary intolerance. but contrasted with that was the demonstration of fantastic friendship and loyalty and principle and so on. so i felt as if these two great forces of love and hate, if you like, you know, were kind of in
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conflict with each other. and i think the reason i'm still here is because of the incredible support i had from friends and professional colleagues and fellow writers and so on. that's what got me through, i think. >> sam stein. >> you've written now 16 books. you say on average between one and five years. you have a very robust twitter following. i'm wondering if you could talk how we communicate in the digital age but also how we write about these very deep, you know, sociopolitical issues, especially foreign affairs and whether you think we've made advancement in understanding complex stuff like iran? >> i think for me the great thing about something like twitter is not what i put out there but the speed with which information reaches you. >> yeah. >> i think that's a great benefit. i think, you know, 140 characters is not a place to be subtle, you know. >> no subtlety there. >> a very good way of putting it. >> so what is your reaction when you see crude videos put up on
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youtube and it causes an entire region to explode -- >> it's the source of blame. >> or a cartoon goes up that depicts the prophet muhammad and in a year or two, van gogh ends up with a knife in his heart. >> my view is that we just have to defend this very valuable principle of free speech that was not easily won, you know, in these countries. most of the world doesn't have it. most of the world would like it. the price of the ticket sometimes is that unpleasant things get out there. i've seen that video, and even by the low standards of youtube, it's one of the worst things on youtube. but youtube is full of garbage, you know. and it's not an excuse for burning the world down. >> take it out of the common section. >> exactly. >> that's why they have a common section. >> what would a respectful political cartoon look like? the format is disrespectful. and so you have to expect that
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that's what you get and just deal with it. >> all right. the book is "joseph anton: a memoir." salman rushdie, thank you so much. it's good to have you in the studio. >> thank you. >> he's got a lot of followers on twitter, too. >> i'm very envious. >> he's big. >> feel free to follow. >> i was going to say, you're going to have four more after today. >> roger bennett joins us next. look who he's talking to. what's going on? >> football. roger bennett talking english premier league football next. >> with louis. with the spark cash card from capital one, sven's home security gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card!
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the host, roger bennett. a horrible weekend for me. i cannot believe that liverpool drew against stoke. >> it's not happening yet. they are very hungry for the season. as have manchester united, that global brand, about to deliver a truly impressive performance. off to rowdy newcastle united. newcastle doing the gentlemenly thing. they went two ahead quickly and
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then a moment of controversy, joe. >> a moment of what? >> pulled this one over the line. looks like he was in the stray cats, this gentleman. cross the line. football gets goal line -- we will never know. the world wrestling federation. united wrapped up the points with this long range shot. >> unbelievable shot. >> that was tom cleverly, age 23. really, that first truly impressive performance of the season. >> for the americans that don't know about newcastle, they know it's a beer, but it's the jersey shore of england. >> the gentlemen go out with their tattooed beer bellies and support their team. >> chelsea and norwich.
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>> they're happy to be on the field because they're embroiled in a nasty racism case. ten minutes gone and it was norwich that scored. he lets this one home. the flawless favorites. >> just hard for him to get back up. >> chelsea restored order four minutes later. torres with his frosted tips knocked that one home. chelsea, no one likes them and they don't care. >> an von scored, also. joey scarborough's chelsea. >> they've been an overpowering team and now developing a little flare. >> a big game in barcelona. biggest in the world. >> it's a beautiful game.
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barcelona against real madrid. two best teams in the world going head to head. it's like watching a mongoose fight a cobra. >> you realize the baseball playoff rs going on. >> even though the baseball playoffs are going on, hats off in the last regular-season game, i'll tell you one thing -- >> they were waiting for the -- very much america's sport in the future. 2-2, messagier scored twice. wonderful piece of football and i know -- >> now, moving from real football to baseball the yankees won. but that's going to be a great
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series. that one's going five. >> i hope so. yankees, orioles, absolutely. go birds. >> so predict who gets the world series? >> i think the detroit tigers versus the washington nationals. >> i kind of get where you're coming from. i think it's just playing out to be the nats versus yankees. >> i think the yankees against the reds. the reds are very underrated. >> reds tigers. >> that could happen, too. reds t reds, tigers. >> tigers, nationals. >> nats, yankees. >> we'll see. mika speaks with conventioconve. >> to talk about them is to kill them. i'll tell you how many are on the cubs every single season.
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>> liverpool's doing well. john henry, tom westerner, doing well in the same way the red sox are doing well, unfortunately. >> thank you. >> brutal party jab right there. >> coming up, rahm emanuel joins us. keep it here on "morning joe." mike rowe here at a ford tell me fiona, who's having a big tire event? your ford dealer. who has 11 major brands to choose from? your ford dealer. who's offering a rebate? your ford dealer. who has the low price tire guarantee... affording peace of mind to anyone who might be in the market for a new set of tires? your ford dealer. i'm beginning to sense a pattern. buy four select tires, get a $60 rebate. use the ford service credit credit card, get $60 more. that's up to $120. where did you get that sweater vest? your ford dealer.
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good morning. it's 8:00 a.m. on the east coast, 5:00 a.m. on the west coast. back with us onset, we have mike barnacle, sam stein and andy. >> mika, something weird's happening in this campaign. you know, sometimes, you'll have an event and as the event goes by, you'll just sort of the count the days and wait for the buzz to dissipate because it always does because we get so easily distracted. this weekend, you're hearing it and i'm hearing it, this terrible debate performance, the impact seems to keep growing and growing. it's turning now into an urban legend. by the end of the week, people will say barack obama can't walk down the sidewalk without stumbling. i'm stunned, i mean, republicans are excited, but i'm stunned to
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how democrats keep getting more depressed every day. i think people who have never voted republican in their life saying i may have to do it this year. >> i think there's been that, there's also been a little bit of back and forth about the jobs numbers that have made the republicans look desperate, but yes, overall, i think the debate had a terrible impact for the president. one that i think is surprisingly lasting. >> why is is it? >> because a lot of people were watching and because you're wondering why things don't work in washington and when you see two people go head to head and you see it be so starkly clear stylistically, you kind of wonder if that is brought home. >> that the president's disconnected. >> so, there's a lot of work to be done in the next debate. a lot of work. he's going to have to get his hands dirty. >> i take it if we're hearing this, you're hearing the same thing, too.
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we could talk specifics about like for instance a democratic pollster who tells me they've lost six points in colorado since the debate, but more than polls, because polls do move around, i'm interested in the people that come up to me on the street, my democratic friends and what they're saying to me. and i won't say there's a sense of panic, but there has been a real emperor has no clothes moment over the past week. it keeps growing by the day. everybody that's watching is hearing this in their hometown says, well, it's stunning. >> certainly no mystery after last week's performance. you pick up anecdotely, then from talking to people in the business of measures this, there's a segment of voters, the disappointed voter. people who voted for the president four years ago and who have been going back and forth to the last year and a half over
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things they thought the president would do this administration would accomplish. so they're sort of disappointed in this presidency. so you come to the debate last week and they look at romney and go, oh, a guy like that couldn't have killed the the steel workers way. you take their level of disappointment with now, their astonishment, at the president's performance and they are now in play. that, i think, is the biggest danger for the president and his re-election. >> andy, you have the press circling the wagons wildly for barack obama saying why didn't he bring up the 47%? bain? well, he did bring up bain and he talked about the exporting of jobs. that was mitt romney's best moment. i've been in business for 25 years, i have no idea. he goes down and starts looking about his paper. >> why didn't he bring an oxygen
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tank? i think everybody thought well, this is obama's strong suit. that's why it still resognates. two, people say debates don't b matter. guess what? they do, if you employee it. and number three into this week, i think it puts pressure on joe biden, maybe what the obama team didn't want, which is biden having to feel the pressure of having to do well. which is maybe not a good place. >> he's going to be great. >> have fun. >> well, he is used to it. >> yes. >> unlike the president. >> and his decades working in congress will help. i think paul ryan is outmatched, but when we say this before the debate, we set them up. >> right. >> sam stein, do you agree? >> i thought the president did wonderful. no. i'm surprised there are 15% -- you talk to any democrat, they concede that he lost.
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i think where you're getting at, joe, is one, democrats love to freak out. they are just born to freak out. if obama were to sneeze walking down the street, they would freak out about it. >> and the president gave democrats something to freak out. this is not on overreaction. >> let me finish my sentence. one was obama just didn't show up. clearly. the second, romney did come off, presented himself as a moderate, reasonable person, where as the past 15 months people have been attacking him as this plutocrat and two, that he's getting a pass by pivoting like this so close to the election. >> i've got to say it's pretty funny know, mika, reading the editorials from the press.
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and it can't be at the end of the day that barack obama's just not up to the task. suddenly, it's oh, mitt romney just lied. he's the biggest liar of all time and -- >> so barack obama is so shocked that he lied, that he couldn't even respond because he lied. serious? >> stupefied. >> this is -- i mean, i was watching football, the most common commercial i saw was an obama campaign commercial saying mitt romney led you at the debate. they must have poured millions into that commercial because they knew they lost it. >> the worst of the excuses, at least in my mind, how come the moderator didn't interrupt him? how about the president of the united states standing up there and doing it? >> the press, mike. >> absolutely. >> we need to move forward. >> they had a rolling set of executions from the beginning.
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first, the blogsphere. the moderate or didn't let obam talk as much. >> just like the republicans had a rolling set of excuses for the jobs numbers. so, it goes both ways. the president -- >> excuses. >> and let's get there. >> by the way, i can't wait for the readjustment of those jobs numbers in december. we may have been off a little bit. i'm not part of it. i'll be glad to bet anybody. >> 7.8 is just fine, thank you. president's debate performance rehaned a hot topic on the sunday talk shows. former presidential candidate newt gingrich and david axelrod were asked if president obama should have called out mitt romney. >> president of the united states had 90 minutes. now, if he had done his homework, if he had of actually
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prepared, studied romney, why didn't he say it? first of all, the charge on the tax cuts is just plain wrong and i think virtually every analyst has said, even your deputy campaign manager. but forgetting that for a second, the job of the president is supposed to be to be confident and to be able to stand up for what he believes in and to be able to articulate what's wrong. mitt romney walked over him. >> i think he was a little taken aback at the brazenness with which governor romney walked away from so many of the positions on which he's run, walked away from his record. that's something we're going to have to make an adjustment for. it takes a certain brass to do what governor romney did there and it's consistent, this is what he used to do in private business. the closer at bain capital and the basic theory is say what you need to to get the deal and that's what he did that night.
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>> this is so laughable. "the new york times," by the way, "the new york times" is kicking into overdrive in the weekend review section. republicans, stew city. drop dead. you know, and then every one, oh, mitt romney only one because he's such a liar. >> but there were some good piece es. >> they' s. >> they're desperate pieces. david with all due ropt, if we're going to play this game, i could pick apart what the president said on medicare. it's not true. what he said on the debt, it's not true. if somebody says something that doesn't line up with the truth, debates about being smart enough and quick enough to call them out right there and not have your aides do it five days later. >> there's no doubt about that, but back to the "new york times." there was a piece "the new york times" this week and governor r romney's tenure as governor of massachusetts and his ability to work with the democratic
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legislation. >> this was a laughable story, by the way. >> joe, sam, i was stunned. "new york times," our greatest newspaper, they couldn't find one single democratic ledge islator to talk to. >> you look at the headline and we're talking about the headline where it said mitt romney's claims of bipartisanship coming under close e observation by "the new york times" and of course, i haven't seen those stories over the past four years over mr. hope and change when we've had the most partisan congress and white house in recent history. but they make this claim. "the new york times" themselves make this claim and you're exactly right because now, every day, they're hammering with another story that just every day. they make this claim and they can't find a singh l democratic legislator to say. >> there wasn't one quoted.
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>> have they not seen the picture of teddy kennedy and mitt romney smiling at each other? >> it was business there wasn't a democratic quotes and you're right because there was a historic bipartisan bill signed in massachusetts, but it's pretty well established he had a relationship with the state legislation. he infamously had that elevator that he caught off ads. that's a well-known story. in debates, you fit. you sort of blend truths to your own story line and it's the job of the opponent to call it out. it's kind of surprising that axelrod and everyone else is saying we couldn't prepare. you've been spending the past ten months talking about how mitt romney will say anything to get elected. >> it's very simple. if mitt romney brings up a $5 trillion number you disagree with, if you know what's behind
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those, those don't come close to adding up. you say the only way say it adds up if you a take away people's home mortgage interest. charitable deductions. >> i don't know why he didn't do well. i've heard this whole theory of he was sort of putting himself in reserve and that he's going to come back strong and take the gloves off in the third and second debate. >> he's got a problem at the second debate. it's town hall meeting. remember in 2000 when al gore moved to close to george w. bush and tried to be assertive and bush -- everybody laughed. barack obama now -- >> tried that on mike one time. not so much. >> barack obama is going to have to be nicer in the second debate than in the first debate because they're going to be in the round. >> i think it can be done.
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there's a lot of work to do. there's also a lot that can be picked apart in terms of mitt romney's debate performance. take a look at is it robert gibbs talking to newt gingrich on "meet the press" yesterday. >> it's not rocket science to believe that the president was disappointed in the expectations he has for himself. but look, i think part of that was because as i said earlier, we met a new mitt romney. we met a mitt romney that wanted to walk away from the central theory of his economic plan, which was his tax cut. i don't have a tax cut that's $4 trillion. i'm not going to cut taxes on the rich. i don't have a medicare voucher plan. i love teachers. i think we need more. don't believe me. speaker gingrich was pretty eloquent in running during the primaries and saying mitt romney will say absolutely anything to get elected. >> you know, the thing is again, robert gibbs is saying this five days late e, four days later. why didn't the president say that the night of the debate?
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and secondly, i don't know about you guys, but i'm thinking if it was my gut reaction and again, i was harshly critical of mitt romney and i'm a guy that worries first about debt and i always have. i heard mitt romney say i won't pass a tax cut that raises the deficit. sounds pretty much like the romney doctrine to me. that's what i took away from that debate. >> coming up, the mayor of chicago, rahm emanuel joins us. how chicago is going up against san antonio to see which city can get healthier, first. and up next, a new pbs documentary goes behind the scenes of the presidential campaigns for the personal moments and tough decisions that have shaped president obama and governor romney. but first, bill karins with a check on your forecast. bill. >> good morning to you, mika, on this columbus day.
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the well advertised blast of cold air came down, made it all the way to the eastern sea board. the question now, how long is it going to last? looks like there's a reenforcing shot of cold air in the midwest, so i think they're here for a week. just dropp eped down to 31 in oklahoma city. one of the earliest freezes on record there. this is not your normal cold air blast. about two weeks early. also a little rain in areas of tennessee. that will try to move through the mid-atlantic this afternoon, so you may get a little wet later on this afternoon. not a lot of rain. just a little bit. a cold start, a beautiful afternoon in the central plains. no big storms across the country over the next couple of days, so anyone traveling, everything looks just fine. washington, d.c., chance of showers this afternoon, then a nice week ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks.
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debate was watched by 3 million people. as many people watched the super bowl in massachusetts. >> romney had these expectations that he was going to win up here, suddenly, kennedy's here, romney's here. >> in the end, voters decided to stick with bobby rush by a huge
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margin. >> obama lost by 30 points. >> it was the first time in his life where people didn't just really accept him immediately. the first time in his life when things didn't go perfectly for him. >> the loss seemed like it might be the end of obama's political career. >> people who saw him afterward say he was as low as they've ever seen him. one person who was close to him said he got the sense that senator obama really wondered if he would be able to continue in politics. >> that was the clip from front lines, the choice 2012, which premiers tomorrow night on pbs and here with us now, the producer, whose team spent the last year interviewing some 100 friends, family and other experts on the candidates. >> it looks like a great, great documently. i would love to see it, but for the fact it's on pbs, looks like it will be defunded. >> not if big bird has his way.
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>> that is so fascinating, the part of the obama story we don't hear a lot about. like bill clinton's 1980 lost. like george w. bush's 1978 loss. that's where they lose. >> romney got annihilateded by ted kennedy. just devastated. it is an eye opener to watch him in his very first debate get completely slaughtered. it was amazing and everybody in our film says that was the moment. where he said wait a minute, i better grow up. >> so, he responded one way. president obama responded another? >> well, obama had a different problem, too, which is that michelle has never really wanted him to be in politics. >> she didn't look really happy in that clip, by the way. >> no, and if you're carrying that around with you until the big bang moment, the 2004 speech
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in boston, you have a thing ticking in the back of your head that says maybe tht not the business i should be in. >> do you explain that, how it is so tough for a politician with a reluctant spouse who is saying honey, please, don't choose this line of business. do you guys go into that? >> it can be really hard for a politician or a spouse, including members of their own party. also if you have a father like george romney was over mitt. very overbearing, much like al gore's dad was. come on, you've got to go. one of these days, you'll pick it up. you'll carry the torch on behalf of the rest of us and in romney's, on behalf of the church. >> so, romney carries quite a few personal burdens out there, doesn't he? >> i think there are burdens in lots of other ways. it was pretty tough as we say in
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the film tomorrow night, pretty tough to be the son of george romney. standing up to gold water in 1964. it's also ironic to find romney looking for shelf space in 2008 and deciding to run more as a congress than he was before that as the governor of massachusetts. >> mike, isn't that fascinating? george w. bush also deciding when he ran, he would never be outflanked on the right like his father was. >> the spector of mitt romney's father seems to be right there with mitt romney as governor, as candidate for president. he's not going to say he's been brainwa brainwashed. he's going to be careful in everything that he say. watching the film tomorrow night for people with a peripheral interest in politics, what do they come away with? >> two hours. a wonderful opportunity, but you know a lot about the story they've written for themselves. hundreds of millions of dollars,
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both of them. obama's probably the most famous person in the world. how do you get underneath that and make that useful to people? well, we decided to go right for character. who are they? what were they as little boys? young men, young politicians? where did that come from and who did they end up being and when you look closely as someone like romney, who has -- i don't discount the mormon faith. he's got a family secret he could never really talk about. five generations of very important mormons. polygamy was what ran them out of the country. george was born down in mexico. their fortunes were destroyed. romney can't really talk about his mormonism because that was the family secret. that's fascinating to me.
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we wonder why is romney so careful about what people call the hidden man and a lot of people said that's why. >> you also look into president obama's childhood, which is described as unsettling. >> feel about him in 2008, this same film, the choice x about him them. the deep er we dug into indonesia, into an 18-year-old mom who basically raised obama -- he doesn't speak the language. he's black. black is not good in independon. by 10, he's really on his own, living with his two white grandparents. >> it's hard to really get your arms around that. did he love his grandmother?
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z >> oh, yes. attachment was there. was there resentment? because a lot of kids get sent to their grandparents. i'm reading pete townsend's biography. >> the thing that comes out of the film tomorrow night, grandfather, alcoholic. grandmother, one of those alcoholics who comes home after work as a vice president at the local bank and herself drinks a lot. they love him. he loves them. but it's a distant relationship. he's black, half black in hawaii trying to come to grips with what it means to be black. not a lot of black people in hawaii in those days and you watch him in our film go from hawaii, struggle with am i black, am i white, who are my parents and this constant search for home. which is obama's search. off to occidental college, where he comes into relationships with urban black kids who immediately
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recognize him as a white guy, a white asian guy probably from -- >> he's an outsider where ever he goes. he's an outsider. >> and imagine what he's done in his life. he builds an identity, which he then turns into the one salvation moment for him, the speech in boston, in order for me to exist, i have to embrace all the things that i am and all the people i am, hence, not a red america, not a blue america, we are the united states of america. >> there is one politician this this race who hasn't lost a race and that's paul ryan. joe biden ran for president a couple of times and lost. paul ryan's an interesting character. going back to that first clip, mitt romney in that debate by ted kennedy. that was a brutal beat down. what lessons do you think he learned as a man, as a politician that he's applied to this campaign?
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>> i think mitt romney is a sales man, a business man. a not an id logical figure. he's basically selling a process of fixing things. he walked out of the moment i think believing strongly that if he was going to win anything, he had to have a basic sales p pitch. a basic guide who delivered, not ideology, not a big idea. we've never found any big idea that romney had politically, but he's a fixer and when 2012 comes along and he looks at the economy, that's what i was made to do. >> i got to tell you, just all the many of the critics claim that the president of the united states is a remote personality. just from your verbal description of what's in the film, it can sort of get an appreciation for the remoteness. >> of course. for both of them. >> but for a president who, for
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a young boy who was always an outsider, was never in one camp or another. he was like you said, too black for indonesia and hawaii, he's struggling with it. he goes to l.a. and he's too white for l.a. again, it's -- >> you can only imagine the burden sort of that obama has representing black people on the political stage. we don't talk about the burden romney probably feels having to be the face of mormonism, to present a calm face. >> it's really amazing. one of the first questions i had was what does a young mormon boy grow up like? what are the rules, regulations, especially a wealthy young mormon boy and what he grows up like is a guy who's had a lot of rejection. he got thousands of doors closed in his face. this is a guy who once, somebody tells us in the film, once he
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locks in on the target, the product, he's into it and i saw that wednesday night. >> let me ask you quickly on going back to the race issue because it's so fascinating to me and it's extraordinary what the president's accomplished considering how he was raised and trying to come to grips with who he is and he's written about this. what stage of his life and i know a lot of people have said this is the moment that even though he's half white, half black, he defined himself as a black man. was there a moment for you where there was sort of a coming of age for him where he decided i am going to identify more with this half of my heritage? >> yes, he comes to new york from occidental. he's still a hawaiian kid in op shorts and sunglasses and flip-flops. he comes to columbia with the determination that he's going to be somebody serious and find his black self. lives on the edge of harlem for
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four years while he goes to columbia and then after he graduates, he lives this kind of monk life existence and he reads and thinks and tries to figure it out. he tells one of the people we e interviewed that, he tells him this when he was president. he never made a single black friend in new york during that time. back people kind of get him. as not necessarily a black guy. it's that moment at the end of that, as meredith says, he does the least and learns the most about himself during those four years of solitary confinement monk like existence. it's then he formulates the idea. i can articulate, all i got to do is figure out the speech. he goes to chicago, the capital of black america at the time, with harold washington as mayor who forms coalition politics that creates a kind of thing
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that obama says hey, wait a minute, i can get progress whites, jews, black people, i can create a coalition and he does. he loses in bobby rush, but he learns that's what he can create. and from that, he becomes the barack obama who has the big bang moment with the speech in 2004 and goes all the way to the top. >> premiers tomorrow night at 7:00 eastern time on pbs. >> if we can keep the lights on pbs at least for another 36 hours, i want to see that. >> it's going to save our country though if we don't. when we come back, it's chicago versus san antonio. and susan neely joins forces to get two cities healthier. i've worked hard to build my family.
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all right. joining us now from chicago, the mayor of chicago, rahm emanuel and the president and the ceo of the american beverage association, susan neely. they are teaming up for a competition to see who can
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improve their cities health the most. i love it. rahm, good to see you and susan, i -- i'm curious as to you you're going to do that. how's this going to work? >> well, this is all part of the competition between the mayors. we're thrilled to be able to support it. we think public private partnerships with dynamic, creative mayors is the right way to get things done, so we're giving a grant to support and the other thing we're going to do is change out our vending machines. every employee is is thinking about working out, getting their bmi down and minding their calories. when they go to that machine, they're going to see more low and no calorie beverages. they're going to see a little sticker like this that says check before you choose, then a calorie label. >> so, tell me about the program. even some of the beverages that perhaps are supported by the association like pepsi and coke and other sodas are going to be
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out. they're going to be like ruled out of the game here, right, because they're part of the problem with obesity, right? >> well, here's the thing. first of all, it's a foundational piece. we launched in chicago, the largest wellness plan. 38,000 employees to deal with health care costs. basically, about 7% of our workforce. drive two-thirds of the health care costs. 7% drive two-thirds of the cost. all around, six chronic illnesses. diabetes, weight, smoking. hyper tension. blood pressure. and weight is one of the drivers when you think of diabetes, plp and hyper tension. so, we wanted to create a competition for personal responsibility. i need people, if you're going to control health care costs, to deal with personal responsible thety. better management of chronic illnesses, so this is an effort and i thought a good competition
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between san antonio, city of chicago, who loses more weight will win on their wellness and invest in better health care outcomes. >> a lot of healthy competition between the mayors. >> i see that. they're going to have -- >> competition is our real name. >> yeah, especially rahm's. but the bottom line, is the challenge between the two cities who loses the most weight, what's the challenge? >> there's two types of benefits here. individuals can participate between our two cities public employees. we have 38,000 enrolled in our wellness plan. if you lose weight and other type improvements in your health, you'll get an individual check. the city that loses the most weight collectively will receive a contribution if the foundation to reinvest in its own wellness plan. i think it's important to you said in these six, personal responsibility is key to better management for health care
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costs, outcomes and better health. incentivising that will show people that you can actually manage these diseases, improve your health care and what is also important to me, save the taxpayers money. so this is a way of showing people personal responsible ili and drive down costs and improve health care for the individuals. >> what we think is information is key for personal responsibility, so that's what we're going to give them with our vending machines, more information to make the choice that's right for them. >> mike has a quechlt but you u do you said that some of sodas and beverages that are part of your association, the companies that are on your board are very much part of the obesity crisis because people drink too much of them. that's fair to put on the table, right? >> well, i know that's your point of view. i don't think the facts bear that out though. here's the reality. i'll bore you with some
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statistics. the average calorie per serving is down 23%. the number of added sugars and percent of added sugars is down 39% in the last ten years. calories from beveraged sold in schools is down 90% and the sale of full calorie soft drinks the down 12.5%. the only thing that's up is obesity, so the corollary doesn't stack up. in the vending machine, you're going to get more low and no calorie beverages, the sticker and you're going to see the calorie label on every selection button, so you will be able to make an informed choice. you want those calories, zero calories. >> my advice is your kids just don't drink soda. >> i don't want to disappoint you, so i have an incredibly shallow question. >> you know what?
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i want you guys to know you're playing to form, thanks. >> the 38,000 participants in chicago's wellness program, municipal employees, is it mandatory they join? the second part is the 38,000. is that number approximately close to the number you received from horrified democrat like me wondering what happened in the debate? >> first of all, mike, we have 38,000 public employees. 80%, the highest anywhere in the country, enrolled. and i think this means teamsters, laborers, operating engineers, public employees not in the unions. when you look at the private sector, nobody has reached the level of enrollment we reached. this is a partnership between the city and labored together and this campaign is built on that wellness campaign. the way it's structured. you weigh in, take your health care measurements. i did it.
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our other employees did it. you have to try to continue to improve. if you fail, let's say three times. on smokie ingsmoking. you then pay an increased ko pay of $50. diabetes, you take your medicine, but you fail, we try to manage you. you don't come back to the coach, three times. on the third time, that's when your copay goes up. if you refuse to try, then your copay for you or your partner or couple, that's when the copay goes up, so it's really an incentive. this campaign without the wrapper foundation of wellness, i don't think it achieves the goals. i want to make one point. our health care costs were rising at 10% a year. we now take $20 million out where i can reassert those into
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other investments that are key for the city's viability. >> mayor rahm emanuel, susan neely, a challenge for you. it's a long-term challenge because i love what's happening. but get rid of coke, diet coke, pepsi, diet pepsi. they're not beverages. they're liquid sugar and then keep if beverages that are changes and i'm on your team. how's that? >> all right. there's a beverage for you, i promise that. >> thanks. >> can i say one thing? >> yes, rahm, yes. >> appreciate that, thank you. >> yeah. >> you can't, look, the point is this is information. i need one of those employees and we all need it to actually take personal responsibility. six of these illnesses are manageable. you cannot control health care costs and get better health care outcomes without individuals taking responsibility. you have to do everything to
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help that. $1,000 should be incentive to see them actually improve their health careme. the spirit of competition and the mayor and i think our respective cities will win. >> i like what you're doing in chicago, rahm. business before the bell next on "morning joe." ♪
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>> yes, yes, yes and being there, the double album the best. being there, that's it. end of discussion. let's fight. >> okay. so what's going on today? >> well, i will be an american aquarium drinker, but let's talk about china. there was a big report on 60 minutes last night, a house report from congress saying do not do business with these companies because they may pose a national security risk to the united states for state secrets. there's your "wall street journal" headline. wawe makes telecommunications gear. their biggest competitor is cisco systems. multi, multibillion dollar corporation and this has got guys ramp up tensions with china. you already had that issue in oregon, the deal that was blocked two weeks ago.
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they deny it. they say we're a real company, not an arm of the government. still, a big story today. also, i know it's really early out in california, but maybe some relief on sight for gas prices. the governor signing emergency action saying we can add the winter blend. it's worse for the environment, so you normally don't sell it until october 31st. they're going to try to start early. you've got people spending 100 bucks to fill up their suvs. >> wow. all right. very good. thank you so much. we'll continue tomorrow. we appreciate it. we'll be right back on "morning joe." i love this time of year.
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time to talk about what we learned. >> great new book, but more impressed by the number of hours he has. >> you know, maybe you'll -- >> i would take it for the power. >> very good. we can arrange that. what did you learn today? >> i was amazed at the ability of the mayor of chicago to filibuster his way through answering a question about how many calls he received last week after the debate from disgruntled democrats. >> and i'm amazed that the head of the soft drink association would even think about coming on "morning joe"